servant be as the sharpest darts, and burning arrows which may penetrate and inflame the minds of my hearers to thy fear and love."

§ 8. OF THE SUBJECTS OF DISCOURSE BY THE FATHERS.

It is very justly remarked by Bingham, that their topics of discourse were of a grave and serious character. Their object was to instruct, to edify, and to improve the hearer. The leading subjects of their discourses are described by Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom. "To me it seems," says Gregory, "to require no ordinary qualifications of mind rightly to divide the word of truth,-to give to every one a portion in due measure, and discreetly to discourse of the great doctrines of our faith; to treat of the universe of worlds of matter and of mind-of the soul and of intelligent beings, good and bad-to treat of a superintending and ruling Providence, controlling with unerring wisdom all things, both those that are within, and those that are above human comprehension—to treat of the first formation and of the restoration of man, of the two covenants, and of the types of the Old and antitypes of the New Testament of Christ's first and second coming, of his incarnation and passion, of the resurrection, of the end of the world, of the day of judgment, of the rewards of the just, and the punishment of the wicked; and, above all, of the blessed Trinity, which is the principal article of the Christian faith."

In like manner, Chrysostom, in reminding his hearers of the leading topics of religious discourse which all who frequent the house of God expect and demand, enumerates the following:-"The nature of the soul, of the body, of immortality, of the kingdom of heaven, of hell and of future punishment-of the long-suffering of God, of repentance, baptism, and the pardon of sin-of the creation of the world above and the world below-of the nature of men and of angels-evil spirits and of the wiles of Satan-of the constitution of Christian society, of the true faith and deadly heresies. With these and many other such like subjects must the Christian minister be acquainted, and be prepared to speak on them as occasion may require."

§ 9. OF THE HOMILIES IN THE EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES.

THE homilies of the Eastern and Western churches were essenally different in several characteristics, which are specified in an

other work, and which are briefly recapitulated-the period under consideration being about two hundred years, from the third to the fifth centuries.

I. Homilies in the Eastern church.

1. Origen introduced that allegorical mode of interpreting the Scriptures, which, while it affected to illustrate, continued, for a long time, to darken the sacred page. Not content with a plain and natural elucidation of the historical sense of the text, it sought for some hidden meaning, darkly shadowed forth in allegorical, mystical terms.

2. The sermons of the period under consideration were occupied with profitless polemical discussions and speculative theories.

The question with the preacher seems too often to have been, not what will produce the fruits of holy living, and prepare the hearer for eternity; but how the opinions of another can best be controverted; worthless dogmas, it may be, deserving no serious consideration.

3. The preachers of this period claimed most undeserved respect for their own authority.

Flattered by the great consideration in which they were held, and the confidence in which the people waited on them for instruction, they converted the pulpit into a stage for the exhibition of their own pertinacity, ignorance, and folly.

4. The sermons of this period were as faulty in style as they were exceptionable in the other characteristics which have been mentioned.

Not only was the simplicity which characterized the teachings of Christ and his apostles, in a great measure lost, in absurd and puerile expositions of Scripture, and corrupted by the substitution of vain speculations, derived especially from the Platonic philosophy, but the style of the pulpit was in other respects vitiated and corrupt. Philosophical terms and rhetorical flourishes, forms of expression extravagant and far-fetched, biblical expressions unintelligible to the people, unmeaning comparisons, absurd antitheses, spiritless interrogations, senseless exclamations and bombast, disfigure the sermons of the period now under consideration.

II. Homilies in the Western church.

1. The Latins were inferior to the Greeks in their exegesis of the Scriptures. They accumulated a multitude of passages without just discrimination or due regard to their application to the people.

2. They interested themselves less with speculative and polemic theology than the Greeks.

3. They insisted upon moral duties more than the Greeks, but were equally unfortunate in their mode of treating these topics, by reason of the undue importance which they attached to the forms and ceremonies of religion; hence their reverence for saints and relics, their vigils, fasts, penances, and austerities of every kind.

4. In method and style the homilies of the Latin fathers are greatly inferior to those of the Greeks.

Causes productive of these characteristics:

1. The lack of suitable means of education.

They neither had schools of theology, like the Greeks, nor were they as familiar with the literature and oratory of their own people. Ambrose was promoted to the office of bishop with scarcely any preparation for its duties.

2. Ignorance of the original languages of the Bible.

Of the Hebrew they knew nothing; of the original of the New Testament they knew little; and still less of all that is essential to its right interpretation. When they resorted to the Scriptures, it was too frequently to oppose heresy by an indiscriminate accumulation of texts. When they attempted to explain, it was by perpetual allegories.

3. The want of suitable examples, and a just standard of public speaking.

Basil, Ephraem the Syrian, and the two Gregories, were contemporaries, and were mutual helps and incentives to one another. Others looked to them as patterns for public preaching. But such advantages were unknown in the Latin church. The earlier classic authors of Greece and Rome were discarded from bigotry; or, through ignorance, so much neglected, that their influence was little felt.

4. The unsettled state of the Western churches should be mentioned in this connection.

Persecuted and in exile at one time, at another engaged in fierce and bloody contests among themselves,* the preachers of the day had little opportunity to prepare for their appropriate duties. Literature was neglected. Under Constantine, Rome herself ceased

* The contests for the election of bishops often ran so high as to end in bloodshed and murder, of which an example is given in WALCH's History of the Popes, p. 87.-AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, lib. xxvii. c. iii.

to be the seat of the fine arts, and barbarism began its disastrous encroachments upon the provinces of the Western church.

5. The increasing importance of the bishop's office.

The pride of the bishops and their neglect of their duty as preachers kept pace with their advancement in authority. As in the Greek church, so also in the Latin, this sense of their own importance gave a polemic character to their preaching.

6. The increase of the ceremonies and forms of public worship. The effect of all these was to give importance to the bishop; and in his zeal for the introduction and general adoption of them, the essential points of the Christian religion were forgotten. Need we relate with what zeal Victor, the Roman bishop, engaged in the controversies respecting Easter and the ceremonies connected with it? What complicated rites were involved with the simple ordinance of baptism, and the abuses with which they were connected; what importance, what sanctity was ascribed to their fasts, and what controversies arose between the Latin and the Greek church from the reluctance of the latter to adopt the rites of the former? What incredible effects were ascribed to the sign of the cross? Where, indeed, would the enumeration end, if we should attempt a specification of all the ceremonies, with their various abuses, which were introduced during the period under consideration? Thus ancient episcopacy touched with its withering blight the ministrations of the pulpit, both in the churches of the East and of the West.*

* Many other particulars in relation to the homilies of the ancient church are given in the author's Christian Antiquities, c. xii. pp. 237–252.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF BAPTISM.

§ 1. HISTORICAL SKETCH.

THE learned of every age have generally regarded baptism as an independent institution, distinct alike from the washings and consecrations by water, so common among the pagan nations, and from the ceremonial purifications and proselyte baptisms of the Jews. Neither have they accounted it the same as the baptism of John. Even those who have contended for the identity of the two institutions, recognise a resemblance in nothing but in the mode of administering the rite.

But the opinions of authors are greatly divided in regard to the time when this ordinance was instituted by our Lord. It might seem, from the account given by Matthew and Mark, to have been instituted when he gave his final commission to his disciples just before his ascension. Such was the opinion of Chrysostom, Leo the Great, Theophylact, and others. But this supposition is contradicted by John iii. 22; iv. 1, 2; from whom we learn that Christ, by his disciples, had already baptized many before his death. Augustin supposed Christ to have instituted this ordinance when he himself was baptized in Jordan; and that the three persons of the Godhead were there distinctly represented: the Father, by the voice from heaven; the Son, in the person of Christ Jesus; and the Holy Ghost by the form of the dove descending from heaven.1 Others, without good reason, refer the time of instituting it to the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus; and others again, to the time when he commissioned the twelve to go forth preaching repentance and the approach of the kingdom of heaven. Matt. x. 7. But this supposition is contradicted by the fact that these same truths had been before preached, and that those who duly regarded this ministry received John's baptism. Matt. iv. 17; iii. 1, 2; Luke vii. 29.